A PROGRAMME designed to destroy Colombia’s huge illegal drugs business could be poisoning farmers and damaging the environment, critics in the US claimed last week.
Backed by $1.3 billion of US government funds, drug enforcers routinely identify fields of coca plants and opium poppies, and spray them from the air with herbicide. Around 120,000 hectares have been sprayed with the herbicide glyphosphate. But although glyphosphate is considered to be relatively safe for humans and the environment, the Colombian government has received over a thousand complaints from people who claim to have suffered ill effects after coming into contact with the chemical.…
